consultant warned when a monitor suddenly shrilled a warning that her oxygen saturation was falling dangerously low in spite of the mask. Dan’s eyes flew open and he blinked in disbelief. How had he managed to convince himself that Zara was dead when the room was filled with the sound of all those monitors?
‘Her respiratory effort is so badly depressed by the drugs …’ his superior continued, almost apologetically.
‘It’s OK,’ Dan reassured the man, immeasurably relieved that all was not yet lost. ‘Just do what you have to do. You don’t have to talk me through every step. I trust you.’
More than he would trust himself at the moment, he admitted silently. The whole scene seemed totally unreal, especially coming so soon after Sara’s narrow escape. How many disasters could one family cope with in a single evening?
At least he’d given in to Sara’s request not to inform her parents what had happened to her. He’d been reluctant, knowing how excited they were about the pregnancy, but Sara had promised that she would go straight to them when she was released in the morning, confident that hearing about the accident would be far less traumatic if they could see with their own eyes that she was perfectly all right.
Well, more or less, he temporised, imagining just how badly bruised she must be after such an event. Her pale skin would soon be all the colours of the rainbow, and as for the pain … that must be considerable, especially as she’d refused any further analgesia.
His respect for his sister-in-law couldn’t have been any higher, as a colleague, as a person and as the temporary mother of his children. Sara might not always get along with her twin—an understandable case of sibling rivalry, perhaps?—but she’d certainly proved how much she loved her sister by putting herself through the traumas of a surrogate pregnancy.
Behind his closed lids he saw a flash of another image—that of two tiny hearts beating side by side. And he could picture equally clearly the fiercely protective emotions in Sara’s eyes. It had been obvious just how much it had meant to her to see the babies for the first time and to know that her accident had apparently left them untouched.
A secret regret hit him afresh, one that he’d been living with for several years now.
He knew that he’d behaved stupidly when Zara had set out to entice him, had already realised, even then, that Sara had been more than halfway in love with him. He’d probably been heading in the same direction until her sister had started her determined pursuit.
And he’d been stupid enough to be flattered and intrigued by the prospect of being desired by a woman so confident in the power of her beauty. Had it been the fact that she was the twin of someone to whom he was already attracted that had made him believe he had been in love with her?
Enough!
Enough rationalisation! Enough excuses! Whatever the truth had been then, now was a different matter entirely.
He straightened his shoulders and deliberately opened his eyes to gaze directly at the woman he’d married, confronting his blame head on.
It had been his responsibility to protect her, and he’d obviously failed if she hadn’t felt able to come to him with her problem—be it depression or a dependency on drugs. He had no idea when it had started or how long it had been going on … no idea whether her brush with death had been an accidental overdose or a deliberate one.
No doubt the police would have to be involved and would doubtless grill him at length about the state of his marriage.
How much worse would it have been if she’d died while he’d been hovering around Sara until she had been settled on the ward?
As it was, even if she did recover fully, it would be some time before Zara was in any fit state to answer questions. He certainly had no idea what had made her take this drastic action, so if the police needed to know why she’d done it, they would probably have to interview Zara’s friends and colleagues as well.
‘She’s stable now, so we’re transferring her up to ICU,’ the consultant said, and Dan suddenly realised just how much time had elapsed while he’d been lost in his thoughts.
His superior patted his shoulder reassuringly, but there was something else entirely in the expression in his eyes, something that didn’t need to be put into words. They both knew that there was no guarantee of a happy outcome.
‘I’ve sent samples up to the lab, just to confirm what she’d taken to make sure we’ve done all the right things,’ he said quietly, then added, ‘Give them half an hour or so to get her settled up there,’ exactly the way he would have done had she been one of his patients.
‘How long before we know …? How badly is she …?’ He couldn’t finish a single question, knowing there were no real answers.
‘I’d love to be able to tell you that she’s going to be all right,’ the consultant said, patting Dan’s shoulder again. ‘But you know as well as I do that only time will tell. Shall I leave it to you to contact the other members of her family, or would it be better coming from me?’
‘I’ll do that now,’ Dan said, his voice sounding almost rusty as it emerged from a throat tight with too much emotion.
How was he going to break the news to Zara’s doting parents?
SARA heard the all-too-familiar swoosh and creak of the door to her room as someone pushed it open, and barely managed to stifle a groan.
Not another member of staff preventing her from sleeping! There couldn’t possibly be an inch of her body that hadn’t been examined, poked and prodded … or had a needle stuck in it.
When nothing happened after several seconds of silence, she opened cautious eyes, wondering what was going on. Seeing Dan standing beside the bed, gazing down at her, immediately doubled her pulse rate, then she realised that the oversized gown she’d been given had slipped right off one shoulder. She had to stifle a groan of agony when she tried to hike it back into a more modest position with the wrong hand.
‘Dan?’ she croaked, trying for impatient but only managing to sound pathetic. ‘I thought you were going home. You don’t need to keep checking up on me, too. There’s an army of nurses doing that every two minutes and …’ She had to bite her tongue to stop herself delivering another tirade when she still owed him a massive apology for the first one. He’d come to see her just after she’d had her ultrasound scan to see if she and the babies were all right and she’d jumped right down his throat. It just wasn’t fair that she was taking all her fear for the babies out on him.
‘I didn’t come to check up on you,’ he said quietly, one hand going out to the chair beside her bed, then pausing.
It was almost as if he wasn’t sure whether to stand or sit, and if it was sit, whether it should be on the chair or on the side of her bed. The whole incident took no more than a few seconds but it was totally uncharacteristic of a man who was usually decisiveness personified.
Finally, he perched uneasily on the edge of the bed, his lean hip nudging against her bruised thigh … not that she would say a word. Secretly, she still revelled in every occasion that he was close to her … close
